I don't wanna need you
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Takaba becomes faced with the pictures he was so proud of...


**fandom: Viewfinder**  
 **title: I don't wanna need you**  
 **pairing: Asami + Akihito**  
 **rating: pg**  
 **description – Takaba becomes faced with the pictures he was so proud of...**

 **Disclaimer – Viewfinder isn't mine.**

 **I don't wanna need you.**  
 **By miyamoto yui**

"Takaba-kun!" the Chief shouted at me as I stood in the middle of the newspaper staff room holding my camera tightly with my hands.  
Though I was expected to look down at the floor, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't stand like a soldier either. I ended up just holding the zoom lens in between my hot fingers.

"Your deadline was fifteen minutes ago!" he continued, staring at me without blinking and pursed lips. "What the hell were you thinking?! You are one of the top photographers now and we need you to cooperate in order to make our deadlines."

"I was coming here on my motorcycle when I saw a lead for-"  
Taking a deep breath, the Chief folded his arms and his lips became a thinner line out of spite. "Does this have to do with Asami-san again?"  
"Yes, but-"  
"Stop. Stop right there." He held his hand up and closed his eyes for a moment. Then, he began to touch the middle of his forehead. Because he was already standing and everyone was watching us, whether or not they wanted to, he had to keep his cool. And I had to keep my head up along with it.

With that, the silence erupted into a heated whisper, "Do you mean to tell me that you missed the deadline because of him again?!"  
I had never heard him speak like this to me before. Although he had gotten upset with me so many times already, it was all for show because he loved my pictures, but this time, I knew I wasn't going to be saved.

"You know it is so hard to get any information on him. If I could just-"  
"Takaba-kun. Come with me." He interrupted and motioned for me to follow him.

Silently, I went into the elevator and the chief pushed a key into the hole in the steel wall before him. We ended up on the rooftop with the sky shining brightly above us.  
He took out a cigarette and began to light it. I looked away because it was the same brand as his. And in one moment, my shame flashed before my eyes.

I hated myself each time I thought of those times.

I ended up leaning on the rooftop's ledge with the slightly oversized, leather gloves covering the railing as if I could bend them. My camera hung on my neck carefully and still. I stared off at the distance to see the Shinjuku Government Building. And below, I spotted someone looking up at me.  
It was impossible to recognize people from such a distance, but as my hair flipped in the wind, there he stood with his long dark coat with both hands in his pockets.

I could have dismissed it, but he lifted up his white right hand.  
His gloves were on my hands.

"I think I have to take you off that assignment," the chief said in a grave voice.  
I turned around quickly. "What are you talking about? I'm the only one who knows anything!"  
"That's precisely it. Takaba-kun, I like you and everyone has seen the favoritism. I can't hide it forever. You've known this from the beginning, but I'm going to be blunt as I always have been with you." He walked up to me and held his right hand over my left shoulder. "You're getting too obsessed. You're getting too into the story."  
"Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? Aren't I supposed to get everything?"  
He sighed along with some cigarette smoke, but the chief continued to look at me. "Because you are you, you don't know how to distinguish these things."  
"Haven't I done everything the way that it was supposed to do? Didn't I give everything I could?"  
"Takaba-kun, a reporter is supposed to give an objective point of view."

"I know but I didn't say anything about all those times the higher-ups asked you to change articles because of the government." I watched him in distress. "You told me not to let things like that get in the way. You said I could do as I please."

"But it's not that. You are becoming part of the story, Takaba-kun. You were supposed to stay out and report on it." The chief took his hand away and looked away. "I didn't ever question how you got your photos or what you did."

My stomach churned thinking of all the things I had to go through for the love of my work and not to give into Asami.

The sun was high above, but still somewhat blocked by the government building.

"You're changing. I don't know how to say it, but the photos cannot lie." He took out my pictures from his pocket. He held some out, palm up, for me to look at. He continued to smoke his cigarette and I flipped through each them.

"This is by date. Look at the early ones from the top and see how they are by the end."

Even doing this was hard because it was like going through a photojournal with a documentary playing inside my mind. I remembered moments from each.  
The first was of me running away from Asami. Asami's vengeful, dagger eyes stared into the camera relentlessly. The last was a closer view of Odaiba. Right before the seashore, still in that black overcoat, he stood there looking up directly at me, lighting a cigarette. I remembered standing over at the stairway leading to the boardwalk unable to move towards him.  
He was calling out to me. I ran away when he motioned for me to leave him before anyone caught sight of me.

The angry face of a yakuza boss was replaced by some kind of relaxed, expressionless businessman.

I looked up at the chief and blinked slowly. I couldn't even open my mouth to say anything. My eyes glanced at the honesty of the pictures which provided a window of me that I didn't know was so clear.  
I felt so helpless.  
He continued to watch me and dropped his cigarette. Dashing it under the sole of his shoes, he told me, "Don't worry. This is just a warning from the higher ups because they're getting pressured from below. Or rather, from the subject of your photos. They understand nothing about the photos themselves."

When he patted my shoulder, he said, "I need you on this team. I never forgot what you told me the first time I talked to you, 'Trust is the only thing we have between us. If we don't have that, there is nothing.' But I can only protect you as far as I can there."  
Print by print, he took the photos off my hands. He counted thirty and put them slowly into his pocket. "But I can't protect you here."

It was then that he left. "You're off until Thursday. You have only two days paid vacation."

"Thanks," I said as I bowed my head when he went into the elevator and threw a key for the rooftop's stair entrance.

That's what this city taught me when I grew up. There were some things you have to keep at a distance, but you just couldn't help it. It was between feeling and becoming unfeeling.  
I wasn't that kind of person to become apathetic…

Hoping and cursing myself at the same time, I turned around to look down if he was there. Only the wind blew through the scarcely-filled tree branches.

As I turned around, I mumbled, "If I can't continue this…there's nothing else I want to do with my life."  
I walked to the stairs.

I wanted to shout at the owner of these gloves and I wanted to forgive myself for the things I learned to hate about myself ever since we met. They were the things I thought I didn't need, and certainly not from another person.

I didn't need anyone as long as I could do it myself.  
That's what I always thought. You could love your family, especially your grandmother but there were things you couldn't reveal about yourself no matter how much you tried. To protect them and yourself, you had to make that wall to survive. Yes, it was for both our sakes.

Yes…there was no one I could go to. That's why I learned this city so well. I wandered everywhere and got lost anywhere so easily when I wasn't paying attention.

Yet, deep inside, the image I wanted to see was the one I wanted to push away too.  
What was honesty anyway when I couldn't face myself on this one thing alone?  
Damn him…

Swallowed into the cramped, stone walkways of Kabukicho in broad daylight, I tried to find the parking area where I left my bike.

ZzzZzz.  
ZzzzzzZzzz.

Without checking the name, I flipped up my phone, barely saying in a polite but distracted voice, "Hello?"

There was laughing on the other end.

My mind was nervous beyond redemption and my chest felt relieved. I was so out of sync with myself.

"Try not to be too proud of those gloves. They're my favorite to wear for special occasions. Blood stains are hard to-"  
Frustration rose inside of me. "Is this all you're calling for?! You can take them back because they almost cost me my job!"

"Oh?" he answered in a not-so-apologetic tone.

At that moment, he appeared before me with that white phone plastered to his ear. I took off the gloves and threw them violently towards him without changing my silent, yet deadly expression.

"This ends here."

His profile faced me as the glove hit his cheek and fell to the ground.

He didn't move. "You're the one who pursued me. I just played along."  
"I won't give up my photography to anyone. Not even for you."

Picking up his gloves, his bangs covered his face. "But you can't do it without me anymore, can you, Takaba?"

He turned around without looking at me in the eye. "I must attend a meeting now. I have no more time to spend with you. For now."

"I won't come back."  
"Yes, you will. You know why too. Isn't that why you almost lost your job? You're unable to give something up unless it's completely nor are you able to be interested in something without giving everything of yourself. This is the kind of person you are."

He knew me so well. The person that my family couldn't understand, he had figured out at such a rapid speed. I wanted to hurt him for twisting everything back to me because of the dishonest words he spoke whenever they concerned himself.

"Yes, the opposite of you, isn't it?"  
I stared into his back and he turned his head a bit to show me that he was pulling on his gloves with his teeth. Then, he put his chin up.  
"As it should be."

Those eyes finally turned away from me.  
They were laughing.

They were smiling at me.

The tenseness was gone.

It was then that I understood why he had done what he did that morning before going to that 'meeting'. It was times like these that made me understand the kindness he spoke of, the one thing I didn't know I had inside a selfish brat like me.

"I'll borrow those gloves again when you're done with them," I whispered as the limousine's door was being opened by one of his attendants.

He nodded his head and went inside the limousine. It sped away.

There was no chance for peace. There would always be tension.  
Always somewhere to go, always someone watching your every step, what kind of life could you live? No expression to not give in and no mistakes in order not to be disrespected.

These were moments that I believed were eclipses to show that we lived in the same world. Despite the places we were born in, these were the times that forced me to realize we weren't so different from each other.

I couldn't tell him "good luck". I couldn't tell him "don't worry".  
I could no longer tell him "I don't need you".

It was then that I went to my bike and put my helmet on. I left the lot and sped through the city from one end to the other. I gripped onto the handles tighter and tighter while crossing over Rainbow Bridge to get to that place where I took that last picture.

I kept on repeating to myself,  
"I don't wanna need you.  
I don't wanna need you.  
I don't wanna need you…"

Yes, even though I had been through the trains, sidewalks, and roadways in this city, I could still get lost here, especially if I purposely became absent-minded. But there wasn't any place to hide and become quiet or to shout without other people to hear what I would say.

And now, my viewfinder truly showed the quiet part that I shamefully kept to myself…

My phone was vibrating and I knew exactly who it was.

I wasn't going to answer it for a while.

I dare you to leave a message, but I wish you would. And I'll feel guilty about it later on. The cycle continues. And I know it won't last forever.

Slowly but surely, I was more afraid of the day the phone would be silent than of being unable to take pictures without you in them...

 **Owari./The End.  
**

 **Author's note:**

I thought of this for a long time and in the end, I thought it was time. It is strange that I did not start with Subaru, but it started out with him. I wanted to try everyone all over again and to see them through different eyes.

Because I'm writing it, it is easier for me. Slowly, my thoughts go automatically into Japanese though I am not fluent in it. All I know is that I understood something about Tokyo Babylon once I lived in Tokyo itself. And I hope I can show you this beautiful, melancholic city.

Sincerely,  
Yui

(Entry 1 - October 30th)  
10/30/2007 5:41:44 AM – LA  
10/30/07 9:41PM - Tokyo


End file.
